A new day?

Much troublesome banter surrounding Facebook and privacy, today. I wonder, how often do we really read the terms and policies governing the platforms we sign up to use? (I know I didn't read Cake's because I like cake! who doesn't... but I might, now)

Well, new day, new platform to try (Thanks for the invitation, Chris!) and with a new day comes a photo of the sun going down on yesterday. Photo: Me in Melbourne, Australia.

Holy cow, Simon, that's one of the most dramatic sunsets I have ever seen. ❤️ I can't wait for the day we have a lightbox so we can see photos like that full-screen. I would sit and stare at it.

The structure of Cake is very different from Facebook. The first way is you follow friends and family on Facebook and here you follow your interests. We did that because everyone has interests that are hard to talk about with Facebook friends & family: molecular biology, politics, Sony a7 dynamic range.

Following friends and family makes it hard for advertisers to understand what ads might interest you. So Facebook buys data about your external lives and correlates it with the true identity you are required to submit. On Cake, if we eventually run ads, advertisers will pretty much know without surveilling our users that in the Sony a7R III topic, you are likely interested in high-end dSLRs.

The second way is we don't require your true identity. Multiple studies show that whether people register on sites like Instagram with their true identities versus made-up handles, it makes no diff in the rate of trolling. But there are times and topics where you might prefer anonymity from employers and advertisers.

The third is Facebook's mission is to connect the world and they are measured in part by number of subscribers. It's hard for them to ban accounts. But our mission is to foster great conversations. You could imagine a few people like you could generate conversations so fascinating that millions view it. So we can be ruthless about banning bad actors because what helps us succeed are people with interesting things to say.

Cycle World asked me to fly to Spain this week and test the Tramontana, and then asked me to use instagram to post about it. When I arrived, I picked up a new Tiger in Madrid, borrowed a phone holder on the handlebar for navigation, and set off for a remote hotel a few hundred KM away. I didn't make any particular note of the route, I just assumed I'd follow directions until I was there.

As I was riding through snow, teeth chattering and worried about black ice, I thought "this would make a good post" and pulled over to photograph. To post, Instagram requires having your microphone turned on- my trust in FB/IG is small to start with, but this week, my tinfoil hat was especially sparkly, so I declined, put the phone in the holder and continued with my X KM / Y Speed = Z arrival time exercise. And then, as I was passing a Semi in a startlingly strong crosswind, my phone blew away, right into the grill of the truck.

Suddenly, my evening was an adventure. I had to figure out where this hotel was, and far from an X/Y = Z slog, I was fully engaged in the moment. It was great. It was a relief not a burden. The rest of the week has been great, too- uninterrupted conversations, seeing things with my own eyes instead of for someone else, feeling alone instead of smothering that with a text message whenever solitude pops up.

To me, the existing big internet players have pushed on boundaries we didn't know we had, to a point where we are beginning to chafe if not outright rebel. Being served an ad for DSLR in a thread about DSLR is within my boundaries. Being served an ad about DSLR because my phone heard me talk about pictures is outside them. Here's to Cake staying inside the lines.